My Wines

My Cellar

Eppalock Ridge Winery is located in the heart of the Goldmining district in Central Victoria. In 1976 Sue and Rod Hourigan left behind careers in fabric design and television production design at the ABC, to chase their passion for producing fine wine. In 1979 they moved to Redesdale in the Heathcote district of Central Victoria where they established Eppalock Ridge.
The winery and vineyards... Read more

Eppalock Ridge Winery is located in the heart of the Goldmining district in Central Victoria. In 1976 Sue and Rod Hourigan left behind careers in fabric design and television production design at the ABC, to chase their passion for producing fine wine. In 1979 they moved to Redesdale in the Heathcote district of Central Victoria where they established Eppalock Ridge.
The winery and vineyards are perched on a rocky, basalt ridge overlooking Lake Eppalock. The vineyards were planted to Shiraz, Cabernet, Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. With the firm belief that premium wine can only be made from the best quality fruit, meticulous attention is payed to the tending of the vines.
Eppalock Ridge is a small family owned winery producing remarkable wines in Central Victoria's most promising Shiraz region, Heathcote. It has been suggested that this region is the best place in Australia for full-bodied reds, in particular Shiraz.
Eppalock Ridge produced its first wines in 1979. A reputation for producing fine wines with great intensity was soon established. The first vintage resulted in immediate success with a gold medal awarded at the 1980 Royal Melbourne Wine Show.
Harvest is usually mid March to April. All fruit is hand harvested using pickers from the Redesdale district. The crusher is a Zambelli 6 tonne/hr. roller crusher/destemmer which has a very gentle action on the fruit. The must is then pumped to small 1.1 tonne fermenters and immediately innoculated with specially selected wine yeast - no sulphur is added in any of these winemaking processes.
After some weeks settling in tank the wine is the racked off the gross lees and placed into oak barrels. A mixture of American and French oak is used.
The wine remains in barrel where it undergoes a natural malo-lactic fermentation in the spring when it warms up a little. After this is complete the wine is removed from the barrel and a small amount of sulphur dioxide is added - and then is returned to barrel.
Some 18 months after the harvest the wine is bottled at our winery by Portavin contract bottlers.
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